[JacziE]

The thing is Unstable, if the voices of masses (which will always be the westerners) dislike asian accents which Kelly only BARELY has, does it mean we asians, never get to cast professional games because of our accents?

I don't want to sound too negative about this but, I would like to be inclined to say YES in a broad spectrum - largely including things outside of gaming. If we take real sports for example, which has been around for a loooong time, there is really very little chance that they would hire someone with even a moderate Asian accent to broadcast on TV.

Gaming is actually already INCREDIBLY accepting towards accents - people like Kelly, Ipp, etc. all cast on their own personal channels. I ADORED KLAZART. People complain little on these, because it his their own stream, their own turf. However, when you add to the mix a event considered to be the top-tier, prestigious and top of the line; they expect a certain level of calibre that people can look up to. You want to see the Day9's, DJWheat's, Tasteless up there to hold up to that very prestige. People are complaining because why should such an event be a testing ground for someone who is unproven?

I hate using myself as an example, but I have casted some really awesome offline tournaments in the past for Warcraft III - eg. BlizzCon or GGL in Korea multiple times. Do I think I am suitable for it? No dude, I think my voice is shrill as hell, murder for some people; and my accent is far from perfect, on top of that, I also have a slight lisp to top everything off.

When people come to me to ask these events, the first thing I say to them is: "ARE YOU SURE? I'm pretty terrible." Because I know I have absolutely no talent to be the next big broadcaster/shoutcaster, this I know for sure. I do not have the voice, nor the charisma to be amazing to listen to. I did shoutcasting way back then (2006-2008) because I was deeply ingrained in the WC3 community and it was something I did to provide a service, rather than a personal gain fame or money. I never aspired to be a professional shoutcaster. I never asked for payment or a salary, because I-am-not-a-professional-caster and I will never call myself as such due to the reasons outlined above.

BUT the main difference here is, back in WC3, there was a complete lack of people who used to do this because they know they can never get the same number of hits, nor the following which SC2 has right now -- the scene in SC2 is apeshit insane for such a short amount of time. Shoutcasters are a penny a dozen compared to WC3 (lucky for me!) -- so I think it's not unfair that people would prefer a neutral accent on an event they consider to be of the highest level.

So I'd be perfectly candid, and Kelly is a friend of mine IRL, that I think she is not up to par for GSL standards because people are expecting the best from GSL. I laugh at the memes, I laugh at duck shrine, because they are freaking hilarous, friend or no friend. And this is OK - because if GSL was any other backyard production then no one would even make a big deal out of this. BUT... I'm REALLY happy for Kelly that she is casting in GSL, because this is basically living her dream and something she really wanted to do every since StarCraft came out. All transpiring events became pretty fortuitous that led her to get that spot. Let's not rag on someone who has decided to DO SOMETHING THEY WANT TO DO.

So I think this entire post has derailed from my original quote, and has become longer than all my posts in the forum combined. ;>

Anyway, being an old fogey in the gaming community - I would just like to say, please don't be malicious in the words you say or use. If we dislike a caster, it is our right; but disliking/hating can be done with taste, no need to lash out at people.